Refusals as Access-Otherwise

Cripped Embodiments of Destitution and Prefiguration

Abstract

This article reframes student refusal not as a geography of disciplinary coercion but asaccess-otherwise: livable, consent-based ways of appearing, thinking, and learning. Drawing oncrip theory (compulsory able-bodymindedness, crip time, disability justice) and anarchic theory(destituent power, prefiguration, opacity), I read four classroom vignettes to grapple withrefusal’s terrains: epistemic, relational/non-relational (presence without capture),semiotic/modal, and spatial/presence. Across scenes, refusal renders compliance apparatusesinoperative while prefiguring more-aberrant relations/non-relations; in other words, such refusalsare not withdrawals from learning/becoming but the immanent design of conditions under whichstudy becomes more livableon differing terrains. Moreover, I articulate a teacher stance thatrefuses diagnostic capture and performative accountability, grappling with consent-paced andopaque practices amid various levels of risk. The conclusion contends that access should beorganized around use, consent, and the protection of opacity, not surveillance andstandardization. Implications include pedagogies that cultivate destituent moves, flexible temposand media, and administrative protections for opacity. My hopes are that thecoercivechoreography of standardized and authoritarian schooling spaces can more readily becomelivable environments that embody autonomy, difference, and love.